To transmit an uncoded broadcast quality colour NTSC television signal in digitized form requires a channel bandwidth of, typically, 90-120 Mb/s for the signal in the composite format and 220 Mb/s for the signal in the component format. These raw bit rates are based on the practice of quantizing the broadcast video signal with 8/9 bits, and sampling the composite NTSC signal at 4f.sub.sc =14.3 MHz (four times the subcarrier frequency) and the component signal at 13.5 MHz in agreement with the CCIR recommendation 601. It is economically advantageous to reduce the signal's bandwidth substantially, especially to fit existing or proposed transmission standards in various countries. For example, reduced bit rates of 45, 90, and 135 Mb/s may be preferred, representing multiples of the DS-3 bit rate within the North American hierarchy of digital transmission channels. In Europe, standard channel bit rates of 34 and 140 Mb/s, for example, are used.
An object of the present invention is to provide a coding arrangement which gives high picture quality while being adaptable to different sampling rates and signal formats.